The statue was commissioned in 1909 by Carl Jacobsen, son of the founder of Carlsberg, who had been fascinated by a ballet about the fairytale in Copenhagen's Royal Theatre and asked the prima ballerina, Ellen Price, to model for the statue. The sculptor Edvard Eriksen
created the bronze statue, which was unveiled on 23 August 1913. The
statue's head was modelled after Price, but as the ballerina did not
agree to model in the nude, the sculptor's wife, Eline Eriksen, was used for the body.

The Copenhagen City Council decided to move the statue to Shanghai at the Danish Pavilion for the duration of the Expo 2010 (from May to October), the first time it had been moved from its perch since it was installed almost a century earlier.

Sunday, December 23, 2012

"The person is merely the result of a
misunderstanding. In reality, there is no such thing. Feelings, thoughts
and actions race before the watcher in endless succession, leaving
traces in the brain and creating an illusion of continuity. A reflection
of the watcher in the mind creates the sense of "I" and the person
acquires an apparently independent existence. In reality there is no
person, only the watcher identifying himself with the "I" and the
"mine". The teacher tells the watcher: you are not this, there is
nothing of yours in this, except the point of "I AM", which is the
bridge between the watcher and his dream. "I am this, and I am that's"
dream, while pure "I Am" has the stamp of reality on it. You have tasted
so many things -- all came to naught. Only the sense "I Am" persisted
-- unchanged. Stay with the changeless among the changeful, until you
are able to go beyond."

Alex talks with British writer and public speaker David Icke. David is
the author of numerous books, including Love Changes Everything and Remember Who You Are: Remember 'Where' You Are and Where You 'Come'
From.http://www.davidicke.com/

Saturday, December 22, 2012

☩...You come to us from another world, from beyond the stars and void of space.Transcendent, pure, of unimaginable beauty, bringing with you the essence of love.You transform all who are touched by you.... ☩ Rumi (Jalāl ad-Dīn Muammad Rūmī)

~I~ Conquerers from Ancient Ethiopia~II~ A Peaceful Multi-Cultural Community~III~ A 'Puppet King' ~IV~ Year of the Elephant~V~ Hard Times

Paul Yule

The "crowned man" relief found in Zafar, Yemen is

seen as
evidence that there was a Christian empire

in the region before Islam
took hold.

Archeologists
are studying the ruins of a buried Christian empire in the highlands of
Yemen. The sites have sparked a number of questions about the early
history of Islam. Was there once a church in Mecca?

The commandment "Make yourself no graven image" has long been
strictly followed in the Arab world. There are very few statues of the
caliphs and ancient kings of the region. The pagan gods in the desert
were usually worshipped in an "aniconic" way, that is, as beings without
form.Muhammad had a beard, but there are no portraits of him. But now a narcissistic work of human self-portrayal has turned up in
Yemen. It is a figure, chiseled in stone, which apparently stems from
the era of the Prophet.

Paul Yule, an archeologist from the southwestern German city of
Heidelberg, has studied the relief, which is 1.70 meters (5'7") tall, in
Zafar, some 930 kilometers (581 miles) south of Mecca. It depicts a man
with chains of jewelry, curls and spherical eyes. Yule dates the image
to the time around 530 AD.

The German archeologist excavated sites in the rocky highlands of Yemen,
an occupation that turned quite dangerous recently because of political
circumstances in the country. On his last mission, Yule lost 8
kilograms (18 lbs.) and his equipment was confiscated.

Nevertheless, he is pleased, because he was able to bring notes, bits
of debris and bones back to Heidelberg. Yule has concluded that Zafar
was the center of an Arab tribal confederation, a realm that was two
million square kilometers (about 772,000 square miles) large and exerted
its influence all the way to Mecca.

Even more astonishing is his conclusion that kings who invoked the
Bible lived in the highland settlement. The "crowned man" depicted on
the relief was also a Christian.

Conquerers from Ancient EthiopiaYule has analyzed the mysterious, robed figure in a report for the academic journal Antiquity.
He is barefoot, which is typical of Coptic saints. He is holding a
bundle of twigs, a symbol of peace, in his left hand. There is a
crossbar on his staff, giving it the appearance of a cross. In addition,
he is wearing a crown on his head like the ones worn by the Christian
rulers of ancient Ethiopia.

All of this suggests that the man with a strange, round face is a
descendant of the conquerors from Africa who succeeded in making one of
the boldest landing operations in ancient times.

In 525 AD, the Negus, or king, of Aksum dispatched a fleet across the
Red Sea. Soldiers and fighting elephants were ferried across the water
to the East on un-tarred, raft-like ships to spread the gospel. In the
ensuing decades, his army captured large parts of Arabia.

The first spearhead was targeted at the capital Zafar. Like a
fortress in the sky, the town was perched on an extinct volcano, at an
altitude of 2,800 meters (9,184 feet) above sea level. Its walls,
riddled with towers and alarm bells, were four-and-a-half kilometers
long. About 25,000 people lived in Zafar.

According to Yule, between the 3rd and the 5th
century the confederation managed to complete a "meteoric rise" and
become a superpower. Its merchants traded in sandalwood from Ceylon and
valerian from Persia. The state controlled the port of Aden, where the
ships of spice traders from India docked. Frankincense, which was made
in Arabia, was also traded. It was a place of luxury. Yule found wine
amphorae, the remains of precious fish condiments and palaces decorated
with sphinxes and lions.

A Peaceful Multi-Cultural Community

The social structure in Zafar also appeared to be unique. The city
had a large Jewish community, as evidenced by a seal with a Torah niche.
Hebrew inscriptions were discovered. Zafar's residents also included
Christians, who built a church there in 354 AD. Arabs who worshipped old
idols lived in the alleys.

But this peaceful, multicultural community soon came to an end, as tensions began to mount in the 5th century, and Arabia was transformed into a front.

The Byzantine Empire, bristling with weapons, operated in the west,
and its vassals kept making inroads toward the desert. They were
accompanied by Christian missionaries, who brought the doctrine of the
Holy Trinity to the shepherds on the edge of the Rub' al Khali, the sand
desert that makes up much of the southern third of the Arabian
Peninsula.

These Sacred Heart imperialists confronted the Persian realm of the
Sassanids, with its archers and armies of bearded soldiers clad in heavy
metal armor. The Jews, who lived by the tens of thousands in the oases,
were to some extent aligned with this power.

It was a confrontation between east and west, and everyone was forced to choose a side. This also applied to Zafar. To stop the advance of Christianity,
individual Arab kings initially converted to Judaism. The entire ruling
class of the realm eventually followed suit. From then on, people were
given names like Yehuda and Yussuf.

Then they took up arms. In approximately 520 AD, they attacked the
Christian colony of Najran, where there were churches and monasteries.
Countless Christians were slaughtered. The shocking news traveled all
the way to Europe.

A 'Puppet King'Now the spiral of violence began turning more rapidly. The furious
Byzantines and their allies from Africa were out for revenge. Kaleb, the
Aksumite king of Ethiopia (who wore gold jewelry in his hair and had
himself driven around in an elephant carriage) went on the
counter-offensive.

If the sources are correct, his first naval maneuver was a miserable
failure. In 525 AD, with the help of additional warships provided by the
Byzantines, he successfully completed the crossing to the other side of
the Red Sea.

The relief of the "crowned man" from Zafar was apparently created
during this period of invasion. Yule interprets it as a representation
of the Christian "puppet king" of the Ethiopians.The invaders continued their attacks. Southern Arabia's holy warrior,
Abraha, had taken control of large areas before long. He even attempted
to free bishops being held prisoner by the Persian enemy in Nisibis (in
modern-day Turkey), some 2,500 kilometers away.The man embarked on a religious crusade at the same time. He rebuilt
the churches that had been destroyed in Najran, and he had new ones
built in Marib and Aden.His most beautiful church was in Sanaa. It had gilded doors and a
throne made of ebony and ivory. In the morning, the rays of the sun
shone through an alabaster panel in the dome. The Byzantines supported
the project, sending craftsmen, marble and mosaics.The result was an architectural miracle, the likes of which all of Arabia had never seen before.

Year of the Elephant

After the triumph of Islam in the 7th century, the church
was torn down and stripped of its treasures, and a mosque was built on
the site. As Barbara Finster, an archeologist from the Bavarian city of
Bamberg, discovered, some of the columns in the mosque came from the
wrecked church, while some of the church's magnificent mosaics were sent
to Mecca, essentially as booty.The enmity between Sanaa and Mecca apparently smoldered from the
start. Medieval Koran scholars report that Abraha built his magnificent
church to lure the pilgrims away from the Kaaba, Islam's most sacred
site.

Another Islamic source describes how the dispute eventually
escalated: An angry native of Mecca relieved himself in the Sanaa
church, prompting the furious Abraha to dispatch his warriors, mounted
on elephants, to destroy the Kaaba. In the interpretation of Sura 105 of
the Koran, the only reason he was unsuccessful was that Allah had armed
a flock of birds with clay balls that rained down on the Christian army
like bullets.

Are these nothing but religious myths? There is historical evidence,
in the form of a rock inscription, that Abraha conducted large-scale
raids against defiant Arab tribes near Mecca in 552 AD. A few Western
historians consider this to be the true year of Muhammad's birth. The
scholar Ibn Ishak, who wrote the first biography of the Prophet, states
that the proclaimer of the Koran was born "in the year of the elephant."Oddly enough, the scrawled rock inscription could be interpreted to
mean that the tribe of the Kuraish, to which the Prophet belonged,
sometimes fought for the Christians. Were they allies? Was Muhammad born
in a city that stood under the banner of the cross?

Hard TimesThere are indications that this could be true. For instance, a
Christian cemetery is mentioned in the oldest history of Mecca, written
by the Arab historian Asraki.

What a mess. In ancient Arabia, the three Abrahamic world religions
intersected in confusing ways. But the Koran prevailed in the end.But many things are still unclear. Our perspective is complicated by
the fact that the birth of Islam occurred at a time of severe hardship.
Climate data obtained from limestone caves in Oman prove that there was a
terrible drought in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula in the
middle of the 6th century. There was also a plague epidemic
that began in 541 and afflicted the entire Orient. Other, smaller
epidemics followed, causing thousands upon thousands of deaths.

It was these horrors that probably triggered the demise of Zafar. Yule
suspects that the drought devastated the "fragile ecology of the
highlands." Cattle died of thirst and barns remained empty.Are the archeologist's suspicions correct? Even Muhammad, as a young
child, was threatened by disease and hunger. According to Ibn Ishak, his
wet nurse was deeply concerned when she was told to bring the little
boy back to his native city.

"Of course there are robots among us. There are also Magicians among us. I think we take turns playing each role, as a matter of fact. The
Magician defines a reality-mesh and the robot lives in it. Grok?" ~ Robert Anton Wilson = R.A.W.

"Life can be found only in the present moment. The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life." ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Friday, December 21, 2012

How
many of us have remarked on the 11:11 phenomena? That uncanny synchronicity
that compells us to look at the clock at exactly 11:11. An interesting
coincidence perhaps, and one unique to the digital age, but the
frequency of its occurence was one of the motivations for my initial
investigations into Numerology in the early 90's. Since then I have
come to understand, and hold in awe, the beautifully simple and
yet profoundly inspiring symbolism that the vibration of 11 beckons
us to, a transcendence of polarity and duality to Unity.

11 is
known as the Master number vibration to most Numerologists. The
process of Numerology is very simple, the language of vibration
is revealed to us through the archetype ABC of the root essence
numbers, the single digits 1 to 9, and most compound numbers are
reduced to reveal the root essence. But with 11 we stop and marvel
at the deeper symbolism that 1 + 1 uncovers, because through the
geometry of 11 we can see that 1 + 1 does not equal 2, it equals
3, and in fact reveals to us the power of creation, the real Holy
trinity.

In sacred
geometry, the number 1 is represented by a circle, and 11 can be
represented by two circles joined together, and this form is known
by geometers/alchemists as the Vesica Piscis. The Vesica Piscis
is the form created when two circles connect and yet divide each
other through their centres: It is the image of the Vesica Piscis
that destroys the myth that polarities are separate from each other.
it reflects the unifying principle, that when two polar aspects
are first identified, divided and then joined back together, an
awareness that life is greater than the sum of its' parts is reached.
This imagery reflects the secret to consciousness expansion that
the 11 contains, that although we are living with a very polarised
world view, male/female, black/white, good/evil, the key to overcome
the limitations of this perspective is to marry, or join the polar
aspects. And when we do this we birth the number 3, the space that
joins the two, defining them and unifying them.

"Light
cannot reveal itself alone and on its own; shadows or darkness must
be present as well- here, therefore, you have a duality. The Good
could never reveal itself if Evil were not there as it's shadow-picture.
The duality of Good and Evil is an essential in the manifested world"
Rudolph Steiner.

As you
can see, when 2 join, a 3rd space is created, but what is miraculous
about this form is that it creates the mathematical foundations,
or ratios, for the geometry of light, manifestation and procreation,
otherwise known as the square roots of 3, 2 and 5 respectively.

The
two circles represent two polar opposites, and in this sense, one
circle defines the female or receptive aspect of consciousness while
the other circle symbolises the male or expressive aspect of consciousness.
The Vesica Piscis is the space that joins the 2 to birth the 3rd,
the joining of female and male energy to create a new form. And
within this oval form between the two circles, is found the mathematical
ratio that creates the synergy of magnetic (female) and electrical
energy (male) that actually creates the electromagnetic spectrum,
or LIGHT itself. Is it any wonder then, that the Vesica Piscis is
exactly the shape of the EYE? After all, it is the window through
which we can view light and the reflection of creation.

This
is the image of reflection. It is also the image of the creator,
"God", and it is said we are created in that image. The word man,
although apparently genderised, comes from the Sanskrit word, Mannas
which translates as "the consciousness that can reflect upon itself".
We need light to see, feel, hear a reflection. Numerology expresses
the vibratory power of words and language, and fascinatingly, the
word LIGHT adds up to 11!

So with
11 we have the joining of two 1's that leads us to 2. 1 is a circle,
and when we join two circles, we have the image of light, and actually
create the vibration of 3, or the trinity. The holiness about the
trinity is that when this step of unfoldment is reached, there is
no going back, the creative force has been unleashed and set in
motion,the geometric blueprints have been identified and the birth
of creation has begun. And this translates to us directly and physically
as well; at the point of conception, the male and female cells join
and pass through the image of the Vesica Piscis to begin the process
of cell division.

The
revelation of the Holy Trinity is what lies behind the mysticism
of the 3. All creation stories across the religious and scientific
divides, begin with the source of ALL-THAT-IS existing as a point
(or a circle) beyond time and space within a void where nothing
else exists, not even light. Then, creation begins by consciousness'
desire to know itself experientially. This desire-awareness created
a movement, a vibrational thought-form that divided the God self
into 2. To know itself, it had to see itself for what is, and to
see is to gaze upon a REFLECTION of itself. Reflection is the mirroring
of light, and this is what is depicted in the geometry of the Vesica
Piscis, the holographic mirroring of reality. 11 represents the
creation and reflection of Light, and reveals to us what we are,
light-beings who are reflections of the creator looking back upon
itself throughout the whole of creation.

The
11:11 phenomena is spirit reminding us of who we really are, and
connects us with the Unity of creation, it opens up a gateway in
our consciousness that leads us back home to the source. 11 is viewed
as a gateway, especially in the geometric symbols used by the Freemasons
and their fore-runners, the alchemists. Working as an artist for
the Freemasons in England I created banners which depict two pillars
(11), with a chequerboard floor vanishing towards infinity lying
beneath them (depicted as a triangle or Pyramid between the pillars).
This represents the infinite consciousness that can be perceived
when we join the polarity of the mind, the left brain and right
brain perspectives, represented by the black and white squares,
and the two pillars of the 11. When this happens, the trinity appears
as a triangle, the blueprint for light, and enlightened consciousness.

The
11th of November 2011 is seen as a very potent date as it amplifies
this revelation of the trinity that the 11 reveals, 11/11/11. However,
although we shorten the year 2011 to 11, 2011 is actually a 4 year,
2+0+1+1, and it was actually the 11th of November 2009, (2009 is
an 11 year, 2+0+0+9 = 11) that gave us the real 11/11/11, numerologically
speaking. But the power of our collective focus on the digital abbreviation
of 11/11/11 being on 11th November 2011 has caused this amplification
to repeat itself expotentially!

"Without
a conception of the true Trinity in humankind, we must fall into
the snares of the modern psychological doctrines. The lack of perception
of this primal "secret of number" has brought much confusion into
the world for a thousand years. Man needs to get to know himself
in the constant interplay of the three systems, the Sense-nervous
system, the Rhythmic system, and the Metabolic system. There is
no revelation, no manifestation, without the sway of the Godhead
behind it. Hence behind every duality there is a hidden Oneness,
a hidden unity. Therefore the Three is nothing else than the Two
and the One - the Revelation and the Godhead behind the Revelation."
Rudolph Steiner.

THE
THIRD EYE CHAKRA: 2 PETALS CREATE THE VESICA PISCIS

THE
SEED, THE FLOWER & THE FRUIT:

THE
VESICA PISCIS AS THE HOLOGRAPHIC GENERATOR

OF ALL VIBRATORY RESONANCES.

THE
VESICA PISCIS AND THE 3 SACRED RATIOS

THE
SQUARE ROOT OF 2: THE
GENERATIVE PRINCIPLE

THESQUARE
ROOT OF 3: THE
FORMATIVE PRINCIPLE

THESQUARE
ROOT OF 5: THE
REGENERATIVE PRINCIPLE

THE
GEOMETRY OF LIGHT

FROM THE SQUARE ROOT OF 3 RATIO

Plants
use the geometry of light to photosynthesise, to transform
light into matter.

"I
have often emphasized that the 3-fold membering of the human organism,
or of the human nature as a whole, was done away with for posterity
by the Eighth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 869. The dogma
was then established that Christians must not believe in a 3-fold
human, rather a 2-fold human. Acknowledgement of the existence of
the 3rd element, Spirit, was forbidden.Theologians and Philosophers
of the Middle Ages who were well aware of the true facts, had a
hard time working with them, for the 3-fold membering of Body, Soul
and Spirit, known as the Trichotomy, was declared hertical. Scholars
were compelled to teach Duality, that the human being consists only
of body and soul, and not body, soul and spirit. But as certain
human beings were well aware, replacing a 3-fold membering by a
2-fold one was of tremendous consequence for human spiritual life." ~ Rudolf
Steiner.